


It's the Storytelling

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 16:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10390575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron





	

"…It's the story-telling." 

"Darling, I've seen you play the raconteur a hundred times." 

Christ, was Arthur about to cry? Eames sidled up next to him and slung an arm about his waist. Arthur sniffed. "It's not the telling." He turned a little and nestled into Eames' embrace. He could feel Arthur's breath, shaky, warm through the open 'v' of his partly unbuttoned shirt. 

"Come on, then." Eames prompted when no further explanation was forthcoming. 

"It's the stories. It's just…it's a PTSD thing, I guess, I don't remember stuff. I just…I just forget. " 

Eames brushed hair off Arthur's forehead unnecessarily. "You have a mind like a steel trap, Arthur." Still, he cast his own memory back over the evening, Arthur's sisters and stepmother, his father's endless fount of stories, and how, in retrospect, Arthur never contributed to the stories of his childhood when they were told. He'd heard Arthur tell all kinds of stories over the years, but it wasn't until that moment he realized they all had a tendency to be recent, a decade old, no more. 

"I just, I don't remember any of it, so it's like they're talking about a stranger. I just forget stuff, Eames." He shifted in Eames' arms. "Not just stuff from back then, but it's like, I'm just not good at remembering anything more than ten years ago or so. I don't know where it goes. And then someone tells a story, and it's like they want me to enjoy it, and reminisce, and I can't, and then I'm letting them down because I don't remember their story when they expect me to." 

And if there was one thing Arthur hated, it was letting people down when they were depending on him. Being put on the spot like that and not being able to deliver was exactly the kind of thing that would drive him quietly over the edge. 

"Well-" 

"Eames, please, this happens _all_ the time at family events. It's always been like this. It's not like it's just tonight, this trip, whatever. It's not me getting a little older or something. Please don't say it." 

"All right, darling. I'm sorry." 

"It feels to me like my childhood is almost gone. I have maybe 3 things I can remember? I don't know. Five. I used to count them. And, it bothers me because they want me to react a certain way and share in something with them, and I'm doing the exact opposite, I'm feeling like a stranger. I'm listening to a story they're telling about a stranger, only it's me. It makes me feel like an alien in my own family." 

"And you don't want to tell them any of this because…" 

"Because then they'll _know_." He _was_ crying, at that, and Eames pulled him close, wrapped both arms around him, tight. "They'll know how…how bad it was." 

"I see." He had seen. He'd seen the burns on Arthur's back from his mother's cigarettes, and a jagged scar on his side Arthur had never explained, external signs of much deeper harm before his father got custody, long ago. Why on earth he'd had custody of the girls straight off, but not Arthur, Eames didn't know. He was quite sure she'd raped him, with some kind of object. And cigarette burns he knew intimately, he had enough self-inflicted ones lurking under some of his tattoos, to recognize them regardless of their age. 

"They'll ask questions." 

"I see." 

"I don't want to lie to them." 

"Okay." 

"But I don't want them to know, either." 

"All right," he said, smoothing Arthur's hair with his palm. "Then we won't tell them."


End file.
